Can we support peripheral participants by sharing screen-capture in real time? - The study of idiosyncratic network service in handheld mediated collaboration

Abstract

Ubiquitous and pervasive computing provides that people are sometimes working together in the presence of communicating artifacts. Often, they have shared visual context, that is, they are looking at the same devices and displays at the same time. This allows them to engage in the processes that create and maintain common ground. However, sometimes they have partial, intermittent, or unpredictable access to shared information. A substantial body of research in the past has focused on the role of shared visual context in focused interaction, especially in dyads and usually at a distance. However, pervasive and ubiquitous computing raises the importance of different kinds of interaction, which is peripheral participation. A new handheld network service, “Look”, was devised to support peripheral participants’ acquisition of conversation meaning by sharing visual co-presence of the task. The experiment results showed in general that Look facilitated the acquisition of sufficient understanding for effective action by peripheral participants. © 2017 ISSN 1881-803X.